In a high-scoring, edge-of-your-seat Australian Football League clash at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday, home side Melbourne pulled off a stunning late comeback to defeat ladder-leading Fremantle by four points, leaving major question marks hanging over the Dockers’ ability to claim a maiden premiership title in September. The match lived up to every bit of its pre-game hype, ending as a 34-goal shootout that kept a sellout crowd of more than 40,000 fans on their feet until the final siren.
Fremantle entered the encounter as favorites, having only played one prior match at the MCG this season – a 43-point blowout of bottom-placed Essendon in Round 10. The Dockers got off to a blistering start, leading by 15 points as late as the middle of the final quarter, thanks to a dominant performance from their elite tall forward group. The trio of Jye Amiss, Josh Treacy and Patrick Voss combined for 11 goals on the day, with Voss notching four before halftime, including a candidate for goal of the year that came just before the main break. The star forward picked up possession 65 meters out from goal, spotted an open goalsquare, and slotted it home to swing all momentum firmly in Fremantle’s favor heading into the second half.
However, the result would ultimately be shaped by a controversial pre-game call from Fremantle head coach Justin Longmuir, who opted to rest star captain and starting key defender Alex Pearce for the cross-country trip. It was Pearce’s third missed match of the season, with Longmuir justifying the decision by pointing to Pearce’s long history of injury issues, even as he conceded post-match that the absence likely cost the Dockers the win. With Pearce sidelined, Fremantle’s remaining backline defenders failed to contain Melbourne’s attacking pressure, conceding 65 first-half points – the most the Dockers had allowed in a single half all season. By the final siren, Melbourne notched 113 points, the highest score any side has put up against Fremantle in the entire 2024 campaign.
Melbourne, who entered Saturday with 10 wins from 10 previous home games at the MCG this season (their only prior loss a 20-point defeat to Geelong in Round 20), found another gear in the final 15 minutes of play. Timely goals from Harrison Petty and Bailey Fritsch, followed by a crafty soccer-style finish from Harry Sharp, turned a 15-point deficit into a four-point victory that will go down as one of the most memorable wins of Melbourne’s season. Petty turned in one of his best performances of the year, finishing with three goals and nearly adding a fourth from point-blank range.
The result has thrown renewed scrutiny on Fremantle’s ability to win high-stakes matches at the MCG, which would be required for the club to win its first ever premiership should it advance to the September decider. Longmuir acknowledged post-match that his side lacked the necessary composure in the tight final stretch, noting that the club had not faced a high-pressure away situation like this in 12 weeks. “We haven’t been in that situation much over the last 12 weeks so we’ll learn a lot out of that,” Longmuir told reporters. He added, “We’ve obviously been practicing those situations, but it’s different, you’re away from home, then the opposition crowd gets into it, the scoreboard is real.” Despite the loss, Fremantle remains almost mathematically guaranteed to claim the 2024 minor premiership, and will close out the home-and-away season with matches against top-10 sides Adelaide and Carlton before hosting their first home qualifying final since 2015.
For Melbourne, the comeback win has injected massive belief into the club’s premiership push, with acting head coach Steven King jokingly coined the side’s late-game surge “demon time” – a playful nod to the club’s “Demons” nickname. King called the win the biggest of his coaching career so far, noting that the statement victory over the league’s top side was a critical step for his group. “We needed to signify to our opposition that ‘yeah we’re here’,” King said. “We’re not just shooting to play a final, we want to make it count and we’ve got as much right as every other team in the competition to have a crack at this. Not saying the players didn’t believe beforehand, but it just builds more belief the way the game was played, especially here where grand finals are played against Fremantle, they’re the best team in it, make no mistake about it.”
The opening half of the match was so high-octane that former West Coast head coach Adam Simpson called it “the best half we’ve seen this year” during his commentary for SEN radio, with 21 of the match’s 34 total goals scored before halftime.